A new watershed algorithm based on hillclimbing technique for image segmentation

The present paper proposes a fast watershed transform based on hillclimbing technique. The complexity of the algorithm has been reduced by doing away with multiplication normally required to form a lower complete image in an intermediate step of the overall segmentation process. Its moderate complexity makes it amenable to dedicated hardware implementation. The results of running both the proposed and the conventional algorithm on different test images clearly establish the superiority of the proposed algorithm. A prototype FPGA-based architecture for the proposed algorithm has also been developed. The FPGA implementation results show acceptable performance of the proposed architecture.